


Best Friends or Distractions

by peroxideshots



Series: Banshees and Coyotes [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Malydia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-17 01:09:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1368370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peroxideshots/pseuds/peroxideshots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t need a new best friend,” Lydia says clearly and loudly.</p>
<p>Even after what she’s been through, Lydia Martin doesn’t repeat herself.</p>
<p>Malia doesn’t reply, so Lydia purses her lips to blow at the drying paint on her nails. Black. The same shade she’s worn three weeks straight. She’d touched it up in her car outside school, hands shaking as she held back tears and defiantly didn’t look at the empty passenger seat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Friends or Distractions

“I don’t need a new best friend,” Lydia says clearly and loudly.

Even after what she’s been through, Lydia Martin doesn’t repeat herself.

Malia doesn’t reply, so Lydia purses her lips to blow at the drying paint on her nails. Black. The same shade she’s worn three weeks straight. She’d touched it up in her car outside school, hands shaking as she held back tears and defiantly didn’t look at the empty passenger seat.

Lydia pushes her hair off her shoulder and crosses her arms over her chest. Malia is leaning against her locker and doesn’t look intimidated at all by the expression on Lydia’s face. For a moment it surprises Lydia, but then again - if Lydia thought running about naked in the woods for three days was bad, Malia had been doing it for eight years on four legs.

Lydia decides that's a good enough excuse for not learning to fear girls that overcompensate for sleepless nights with too much concealer and too much studying.

After they stand there for a few more seconds in silence, Lydia has to admit she’s impressed. Malia tilts her head to the side and taps a rhythm against the metal of her locker door as though deep in thought. Malia knows everything that’s happened, and Lydia assumes she found out about it all from Stiles and Scott, because it certainly wasn’t her.

She swallows hard at the thought of the two having to fill Malia in. She imagines Scott’s mom making them tea as he told Malia the story of how they’d lost Allison in battle, but without her they wouldn’t have won the war. She imagines Stiles discretely trying to count his fingers under the table as he tells Malia about how it got so much worse than coughing up flies and wrestling power-tools from mentally unstable teenagers. For a moment she feels guilty about not helping.

Malia doesn’t smile, exactly – not a lot of people smile properly at Lydia that much anymore. She imagines it’s because it’s considered rude or insensitive to smile at the girl whose best friend got stabbed. Malia doesn’t often smile properly anyway, other than little quirks of her lips and the occasional snarl that has Scott elbowing her in the lunch hall.

Lydia practices her smiles in front of the mirror every morning, and after three weeks she still can’t manage to make it meet her eyes. It’s nearly there, but not completely.

Despite Malia’s tendency not to smile, the corner of her mouth turns up slightly and she tilts her head the side. Her eyes are narrowed, but it’s not in a mean way, and Lydia stares right back. Something about the girl’s gaze makes Lydia feel under scrutiny and she has to remind herself of how she used to _thrive_ under pressure and scrutiny. She raises her eyebrows.

“I don’t want to be your new best friend,” Malia replies. She takes a few books out of her locker and snaps the clasp on her messenger bag, and Lydia wonders when coyote-girl managed to find time to do some research into fashion. “I’ve never had one before, so why start now?”

Lydia frowns lightly. The closest she’s ever come to feeling déjà vu was the banshee variety – the sick, clenching feeling of needing to scream but being terrified to open her mouth and taste blood from her raw throat. Regular human déjà vu isn’t much better than that. When she closes her eyes for a moment she can still smell Allison’s perfume from that first day, and it doesn’t help that Malia’s locker is on the same corner that Allison’s used to be.

“I don’t need a friend,” she reiterates, if only to regain her train of thought. She opens her eyes again and smooths down her skirt with hands that only shake a little. If Malia notices she doesn’t say anything, but Lydia knows she notices the way Lydia licks her lips slightly as her fingers fluff up her hair. “And I don’t need a distraction.”

Malia nods again and leans minutely towards Lydia against the locker. “Okay. That’s okay. Neither do I.” She untucks a strand of hair from the strap of her bag and for a moment it’s so _Allison_ that Lydia’s breath hitches in her throat – but then Malia is smiling that smile, the one with too many teeth, and Lydia realises that there’s no way to confuse Malia with Allison anymore. She wonders how she ever managed it as she sighs in relief and flickers the girl a weak smile in return.

Then the bell goes, and Lydia makes a point of checking her watch while Malia points jerkily over her shoulder with her thumb. Lydia feels the girl’s eyes on her as she surreptitiously watches Malia’s receding form through the swarms of people.

Lydia waits until Malia has rounded the corner before going into her classroom, and spends the twenty minutes of tutor time taking slow breaths, legs crossed at the ankle in her seat at the back of the class. Back nail varnish smears into the palms of her hands as she clenches and unclenches her fists. In and out. In and out.

 

 

 

Malia doesn’t know much about Beacon Hills yet.

Well, that’s only half true. Malia knows the Beacon Hills woods like the back of her hand, and she’s certain she would be able to walk the place blindfolded if she were five feet shorter and had paws again. But she isn’t, and she doesn’t.

Because of that, all Malia knows about Beacon Hills are either things she’s learnt in the last three weeks, or the hazy memories that linger on the insides of her eyelids before she goes to sleep, like clouds of fireflies in the distance. Those memories mostly just involve a lot of screeching metal and screaming, or her mother’s hands running through her hair as she clutches a doll to her chest.

Among the things she’s learnt since her rebirth at Beacon Hills – apart from maths and science and all the pathetic trivialities Malia pays no attention to – is that Beacon Hills is apparently a magnet for terrible beings. The town has been a hiding place for monsters, real monsters; monsters that are nothing like the one living under her own skin. Malia could feel it the second she came back, like a pulse signal beaming outwards in a circle, a ripple in the water that made the coyote inside of her sit up and sniff the air as though _sensing_ the tragedy.

Malia doesn’t understand much in the way of high school dynamics or, you know, functioning like a remotely normal human being; but Malia knows all about her pack. None of them seem to be too functional either, so Malia doesn’t feel all that bad about it.

When she thinks of the pack as _her_ pack it makes something warm glow in her chest, but in reality she knows that assumptive of her. Scott’s made it clear that it’s too hard for him to make rational Alpha decisions so soon after everything, and Malia still has to be as patient while she learns to control the beast inside her before she can be in anybody’s pack. It’s a slow process, like taming a feral dog, but with every passing day she feels a little more settled, a little more comfortable in her own skin.

The first time Malia had seen Stiles again she’d realised that she had the _fewest_ problems of the pack. She’s touched Stiles’ arm lightly in greeting and he had jerked away frantically like she’d thrown a bucket of ice-water over him.

“I don’t really –“ He’d said, trailing off and shaking his head as he pulled his hoodie sleeves over quivering hands. Malia hadn’t tried to touch him again for a week, but she had found herself wondering with a strange, sad nostalgia what Stiles had been like before all the _shit_ happened to him.

Malia had been a coyote for eight years, but essentially she’d been too young to remember killing her mother and sister, and if she did, she knows it was an accident - so the worst that comes of it now is the occasional crippling guilt late at night. She’d had a crazy boy try to drill a hole through her skull, but she isn’t dead yet. Malia likes to think of herself as reasonably well adjusted.

She can’t imagine how terrible it had been for Stiles, but the shake to his fingers and the way all the mirrors in his house are covered with sheets gives her some idea.

After that first week of not touching Stiles, he’d sat her down in his bedroom and told her everything. He had started with his mother’s funeral and ended with Allison’s, their hands tangled up on the duvet between them and tear-tracks on their cheeks.

“That time back at Eichen House,” Stiles had said, staring at Malia’s face as the sun started to set outside. “That was my first time, and I wouldn’t have changed it. At all.” He’d squeezed her hands and Malia had raised her eyebrows sceptically. “Okay,” he had conceded with a shadow of a smile; “Maybe I would rather I hadn’t been possessed. But you know; beggars, choosers, all that.”

Malia had nodded thoughtfully. It was then that she decided that didn’t feel guilty about having sex with Stiles. Looking back, she wasn’t quite sure why she’d done it, but she didn’t regret it and knowing that Stiles didn’t either was a weight from her shoulders. “It certainly was something special,” she had said dryly, proud to make Stiles’ crack a proper smile even if it stopped just shy of his eyes.

She’d bumped his shoulder with her own and he’d bumped back, and neither of them had to say that ‘it’ would never happen again, but they both _knew_.

 “And me and Lydia are just friends now,” he’d added quickly with a meaningful glance. Malia had just pulled an exasperated expression, pursing her lips at Stiles like they’d been best friends all their lives. She wasn’t really sure why she pulled that face, but it had made Stiles chuckle so it was definitely worth it.

From then on Stiles wouldn’t shy away from her touch, and every time he doesn’t it makes something tight uncurl in her chest because Stiles is _pack_ and pack is warm and feels like home. It’s the same as the way Scott’s lopsided smile or Isaac’s friendly-giant presence beside her at lunch makes her step feel a little lighter. The way Kira explains her chemistry homework in a slow relaxing voice or the way Derek lets her nap on his couch leaves her squeezing her eyes closed to steady the rush in her chest.

Lydia’s pack too, so Malia doesn’t really understand why it feel so different with her.

Her perfume is pleasant enough, but Malia finds herself straining in art class to breathe in deeper, to catch a scent of what hovers beneath it – Lydia smells of loss and pain and _defiance_ and _strength_ and so strongly of pack that it burns against the inside of Malia's throat and leaves her breathless, eyes watering.

Lydia sends her fleeting smiles in the hallway that leave Malia’s heart stuttering in her chest and feeing so fucking confused it’s unreal. All Malia knows of love she’s learnt from three weeks of recorded episodes of Glee at Scott’s house, and beneath that, buried under _human things_ , is her coyote’s guttural instinct urging her to stay with someone that makes her chest warm, because warmth means home and home means _safe_.

Lydia doesn’t want a best friend or a distraction. Malia wonders what that leaves and whether there’s any room for her in the space, because Lydia’s dainty wrists and bright hair and half-hearted smiles keep Malia up at night.

 

 

 

They get closer after that. Not quickly, not suddenly.

Lydia just starts sitting closer to her at the lunch table, and Malia is relieved to see that the way Stiles’ eyes light up has more to do with having his friend back than anything, because she’d heard all about Stiles’ hero-worshipping crush on Lydia and it made her stomach hurt.

“You had sex with Stiles, didn’t you?” Lydia asks one day at lunch. She’s eating a pot of pasta and her eyebrows are raised and her voice is low as she leans in. Malia’s heart-rate quickens and she takes a bite of her sandwich instead of replying, because she knows Lydia already knows the answer. The whole pack knows - it just isn’t something they speak about.

Lydia rolls her eyes and sighs. “Malia,” she starts, flashing a quick glance about the table. If the werewolves are listening they don't show it, seemingly too busy chatting with Stiles and Kira to pay any attention. “It’s okay. The dynamic between Stiles and I is probably hard to read for an outsider, but trust me – our relationship is entirely platonic now.”

Malia’s breath hitches in her throat at the term ‘outsider,’ so Lydia leans in and touches her fingertips to the inside of Malia’s wrist. “You know what I mean,” she adds under her breath in a voice that draws a smile from Malia’s chest and makes the feral part inside of her _whine_.

Malia nods slowly. “I’ve spoken to him since,” she tells Lydia in a soft tone, suddenly feeling desperate to get the truth across. “We aren’t – It was nice, but really we both thought we wouldn’t get another opportunity to do it. That was mostly how it happened. We’d only just met, so there wasn’t really anything behind it.” Malia wonders whether she’s lying even as she says it – there’d been feelings behind it at the time, obviously, but as she watches Stiles across the room all she can focus on is the warm touch of Lydia’s fingertips on her skin.

Lydia hums lightly beside her. “So you aren’t going to be seeing him again?” She asks, trying not to roll her eyes at the phrasing. “I’m using the term ‘seeing him’ to include casual fucking as well as dating.” Lydia had taken to explaining the occasional phrase or reference to Malia quietly under her breath when they’re in public. Malia understands practically everything to some degree, but occasionally she still says the wrong thing or in the wrong tone of voice. When that happens, Lydia plants a light touch her arm or kicks her under the table and Malia apologises insincerely, looking forward to the hours later when Lydia will take her to one side to whisper where Malia had gone wrong as she tried to force her feral blood into her foreign, human form.

(Malia has a feeling that Lydia had been slightly relieved when she’d found out about her experience with Stiles - after the initial surprise, obviously - since it meant Lydia wouldn’t have to explain the details of _sex_. To be honest, Malia can’t imagine that anything could make the girl blush, but she’s glad she didn’t have to have that talk, especially since she spends such a large amount of time thinking about Lydia’s mouth and her fingers and the way her skirts flutter around her thighs as she walks.)

Malia swallows hard and makes herself keep eye-contact with Lydia’s piercing gaze. “No to all of the above,” she says honestly with a toothy smile. Lydia smiles back, and Malia lets herself hope for a moment that she isn’t imagining the flash of relief in Lydia’s expression, and for a moment longer that it’s because Malia isn’t with Stiles, not the other way around.

When Malia looks over again, Lydia is still smiling at her. It’s as close to a sincere smile Malia has ever seen on her beautiful features, nothing like her usual lip-gloss pout. It lights up her face and makes Malia’s insides melt.

She isn’t sure who makes the first move, but without even realising it their hands resting together on the table curl over one another – their fingers intertwine on the plastic table. She looks from their hands tangled together to Lydia’s face in surprise, but the girl isn’t looking at her. Her gaze is fixed across the room, seemingly at nothing in particular, but that contented, not-quite-happy-but-getting-there smile is on her face.

 

 

 

The first time Malia stays at Lydia’s house, they sleep in the half-decorated spare bedroom on a blow-up double bed. Lydia had admitted softly on the drive back to her house that she’d rather not sleep in her bedroom because it reminds her too much of sleepovers with Allison, and Malia had squeezed her hand on the wheel as her voice as cracked.

Lydia says Allison’s name like it’s something sacred. In a strange way, Malia is glad Lydia had made it clear there was never to be competition between them, because Malia could _never_ bring herself to feel anything but sadness for the adored girl. Even though the only memories Malia has of Allison are in jerky black and white, foggy like a dream from her days as a coyote, the pictures Lydia paints of Allison in her infrequent confessions are multi-coloured and make her chest ache.

They sit on the bed side by side and watch DVDs that night. Malia wears a pair of Lydia’s silk pyjamas, which feel strange against her cleanly-shaven skin.

(Lydia shows her how to do that on their first sleepover, too – she sits on the toilet seat painting her nails black against the white of the sink while Malia uses a razor for the first time, wearing nothing but a smile and Lydia's scent at her request as she sits up to her waist in bubbly bathwater. Malia takes her time, simultaneously trying not to cut her skin to shreds and breathe in the familiar smell of Lydia that swirls around them.)

They fall asleep early after a lazy evening of eating unhealthy food that Lydia overcompensates for by sucking cranberry juice through a straw. Malia finds herself mirroring Lydia’s actions more and more lately, as though following Lydia’s expertise perfectly can bring them closer together. She ties her hair up into a ponytail to go to sleep like Lydia does and finds herself echoing the way she takes off her makeup – one eye at a time, then the rest of her face. They smile at each other as they reach for popcorn at the same time, their brushing hands sending sparks up Malia’s arm.

Lydia educates her on Legally Blonde and the beauty of reality television, which she assures Malia was just a guilty pleasure of hers and nothing more, before they fall asleep side by side sharing Lydia’s duvet.

When they wake up the next morning, their legs are tangled together under the sheets and Malia’s face is pressed into the hollow of Lydia’s collarbone.

When they pull away, they smile at each other and let their hands stay together for a moment longer than necessary.

Malia decides there and then it’s the best moment of her life as a human so far.

 

 

 

“I still don’t want a new best friend,” Lydia reiterates a month or so after the first time she’d announced it. They’re lounging on Lydia’s sofa, Malia’s legs draped over Lydia’s thighs.

Malia turns to look at her with a surprised expression. “Okay? Is that a polite way of you telling me to get out of your house, or…?” Malia replies, eyebrows raised in confusion and smiling at the chuckle that escapes Lydia’s lips. She giggles too when Lydia raps on her shins with her fingertips.

“Dork,” Lydia scolds, but she’s smiling. “I’m just saying. Nothing’s changed. I still don’t want a new best friend or a distraction.” Malia doesn’t know what to say to that, and Lydia’s turned her attention back to the TV, so after a second Malia does the same.

They sit in silence for a little while longer, and just as Malia feels as though she’s going to melt into the ground from the suspense, Lydia speaks again. “I don’t want a boyfriend either. I’ve decided.” Lydia’s fingers drum patterns into Malia’s shins as she talks, and when Malia glances over the girl is looking at her with wide, meaningful eyes.

Malia nods in approval, not bothering to hide her reaction or make it into something a little less eager. She’s so past that, and it’s not in her nature to disguise her feelings anymore. Not since her human body and the coyote inside of her calmed into some sort of cooperation, like a harmony in her chest she hadn’t realised was discordant before. “Wise,” she tells Lydia, frowning in mock-seriousness. “A wise decision.”

Lydia gives her a quelling look, and Malia bites back a smile. She makes a sound of protest when Lydia pushes her legs off of her lap, and by the time she gets comfortable again she realises that Lydia is sitting cross-legged on the sofa and pulling herself towards Malia. Her red hair is loose and hangs around the two of them like a marquee as Lydia leans nearer.

Malia bites down on her lip harder and tries to read the contented expression on Lydia’s face. She reaches blindly out to take Lydia’s hands in her own, fumbling a little as she tries not to break the eye contact or the spell Lydia seems to be casting on her.

“What, then? No best friends, no distractions, no boys. You’re so picky. What does that leave?” Malia asks in a soft voice. She sits with her legs curled underneath her and strokes circles on the backs of Lydia’s hands, the hot breath spiralling up between their faces like smoke and sending the coyote inside her _wild_.

Lydia hums thoughtfully and pulls her hands from Malia’s to stroke lightly up her bare arms until she can curl her wrists around the back of Malia’s neck. Malia’s breath quickens and she can barely contain the happiness she’s getting from just being this _close_ to Lydia.

Their faces are barely an inch away before Lydia talks again. Her smile crinkles at the corners of her eyes and seems to leak out into the air between them. “It leaves _you_ ,” Lydia whispers simply, punctuating it with an even wider smile.

Malia mirrors the expression and feels her heart jolt into her throat. She winds her hands around Lydia’s sides to rest at her waist and doesn’t leave any time for anything else to be said before she’s pressing their lips together.

Lydia lets out a little moan against Malia’s mouth and it send vibrations deep through Malia’s ribcage, echoing around in the empty space between her lungs. Malia can practically feel the contentment and peace pulsing through Lydia beneath her hands and lips and feels her body relax for what must be the first time in _years_.

They pull away after a few moments, but Malia’s lungs ache for air as though it’s been hours.

She watches Lydia smile happily as they both try not to gasp for air. “I’m fine with whatever you want me to be,” Malia whispers with a smile. Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth and she sucks at it eagerly to taste every last remnant of Lydia’s strawberry flavoured lip-gloss.

“Good,” Lydia says softly. She trails her thumbs down the sides of Malia’s cheeks and stares at her face as though compartmentalizing every facet of it, and Malia and her coyote smile at her with something that might just resemble hope.

**Author's Note:**

> as if this is the first malydia fic on ao3 omfg
> 
> i couldn't stop myself, they did the thing with the look and the smile and my mind ran away with me
> 
> (PS i am so paranoid that there are errors in this because i wanted to get it online quickly, if there is please do tell me!)
> 
> (PPS edited some typos and the summary ^^)


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